Archive for Eric Cantor

There’s a blogger that I regularly read, who titles many of his morning blogs as Morning Leftovers. That’s because he writes day and night about baseball.

Today I am headed up to West Virginia for some work on a case that includes a mediation. So, I also went with the obvious blog title. The mediation will include at least eight different defense lawyers, because of the many defendants. I hope that they have lots of available food!

So, I thought I would post a couple of quick news stories that caught my attention. First, did you see that former Congressman from Virginia, Eric Cantor, has taken a job with a Wall Street Bank? (Marketwatch.com) Are you nosy like me? (By the way, I had to look up the spelling of nosy. I learned it can be spelled both ways.)

The article says that he will make at least 3.5 million dollars over the next 16 months. He was hired according to the CEO, “for his judgment and experience”. Cantor has no previous banking experience. Imagine his salary if he had experience!

The second quick news story today takes us to South Carolina. A teenager is suing the Division of Motor Vehicles (Yahoo) because they would not let him wear makeup for his new driver’s license photo.

The sixteen-year-old Chase Culpepper says that he sometimes wears makeup and woman’s clothing and that DMV told him that he was ordered to remove his disguise. He says he left the building feeling humiliated. Culpepper has filed suit and his complaint alleges that “Chase should be allowed to get a driver’s license without being subjected to sex discrimination”.

In the late 1990’s, Vice President Al Gore was being interviewed on CNN by Wolf Blitzer. In responding to a question about his qualifications in running for office; he replied,

“During my service in the United States Congress, I took the initiative in creating the Internet. I took the initiative in moving forward a whole range of initiatives that have proven to be important to our country’s economic growth and environmental protection, improvements in our educational system”.

Gore was criticized and even ridiculed for claiming to have “invented” the Internet. He and his supporters quickly defended him by saying that he never claimed to “having invented the Internet”. He was just discussing how supportive he was personally and through legislation in technology advancement.

When I looked at Sunday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch, I saw a link to PolitiFact.com, which analyzes statements by politicians and rates them on being true or false. The most aggregious statements are rated as “pants on fire”. The little graphic even has fake flames.

One of the political statements is a quote from U.S Representative Eric Cantor. In budget discussion he is credited with saying that, “ The National Science Foundation spent $1.2 million paying seniors to play World of Warcraft to study the impact it had on their brain.” Right next to that statement is a big “pants on fire” graphic.

I did not do any research on why or where Representative Cantor said that. Plus, maybe he was given faulty research or simply misstated what he meant to say. Maybe PolitiFact misstated their facts.

In the trial of a civil matter, juries receive instructions from the judge that is considered as the law of the case to be applied to the evidence. In many cases, plaintiff and defendant will call expert witnesses who give completely different opinions on the exact same piece of evidence.

As to expert witnesses, this is the jury instruction that is usually read to the jury,”In considering the weight to be given to the testimony of an expert witness, you should consider the basis for his/her opinion and the manner by which he/she arrived at it and the underlying facts and data upon which he/she relied.”

In law, a jury is known as the trier of fact. In our own lives, it is up to us to determine truth or fiction. We have learned that we have to do our own research before just accepting what we hear or read.

When I think of truth, I am reminded of my grandfather’s quote that I probably have written in a previous blog. Still, when I think about it it brings back a good memory.

Before bedtime, he would always insist on making sure that I brushed my teeth. Plus, he did not want me to shortcut it and miss a tooth. He would look me in the eye and say, “be true to your teeth or they will be false to you”. Good motiviation!

Tomorrow’s blog will be a follow-up on this when I discuss a trial from last week.

Any information herein on this website is not formal legal advice, nor the formation of an attorney client relationship. This website is designed for general information only. The Joel Bieber Firm does offer free legal consultations to help you decide if you have a claim to pursue.